Keeping Secrets
by Silver345
Summary: When Lucas' past is revealed to be different, Riley isn't the only one shaken up. Set after Girl Meets the Secret of Life. Lucaya friendship and slight pairing. Twoshot.
1. Chapter 1

Paint covering her hands, Maya sat on the steps of the school. She had stayed late to finish up an assignment and with everything that was happening, truthfully she just wanted to avoid her friends, let them cool off. When they found out about Lucas' past, Riley had, in her opinion, overreacted and created a big deal out of nothing. But that was just how her best friend was and despite the difficulties between them sometimes, Maya loved the brunette to pieces. So there she sat on the steps, watching the occasional car drive by when she heard footsteps coming up behind her.

"You're still here?" Maya turned to look over her shoulder, but her confused expression faded when she saw her Texan friend towering over her.

"Sure am, Huckleberry. You wanna sit?" She turned around and pat the step next to her. He complied, his feet finding a step two down from her own with his longer legs.

They sat quietly, simply feeling the autumn breeze on their skin and in their hair and both subconsciously counting cars. When Maya got up to her twenty fourth car, she finally spoke.

"Today was pretty crazy huh?" She could see him glance at her in her peripheral vision as he pondered his response.

"Yeah, yeah it was. It's funny, I didn't tell you guys about my past because I was purposely trying to avoid that kind of response but I guess it was inevitable." Neither of them laughed. It wasn't funny.

"Does Riley get like that about these kind of things a lot?" He rest his elbows on his knees with the wrists lightly crossed at he turned to her again. A snort from Maya told him she did.

"Yeah, take it from me, Riley is a bad person to keep secrets from." He furrowed his brow.

"You've kept secrets from her? But I figured you guys were such good friends that you would never have anything like that?" She stared at him incredulously with an eyebrow raised.

"Lucas, you're _part_ of the Riley Committee. We keep practically everything from her. If she ever found out she'd totally flip." Lucas' face crossed into one of understanding but Maya shook her head lightly so that her blonde waves fluttered around her face.

"But that's not even what I'm talking about." The Texan's look of relief returned to confusion once again.

"What do you mean then?"

"Well, I met Riley in Kindergarten. She just kind of, appeared one day, I don't know. I've always been kind of a loner I guess but she just came up to me while I was drawing and asked if I wanted to play dolls with her. We've been best friends ever since, even though I told her her doll looked stupid wearing so much pink." Maya smirked at the memory.

"Those were the days. Anyway, everything was great for a while, but in third grade, Riley found out everything about my dad and how he left us. It hadn't seemed like a big deal to me, I figured some girls were just lucky to have dads and some weren't and that was that. But Riley, when Riles found out, she acted like I had kept some huge secret from her. She thought I was purposely keeping this from her, but really it just hadn't really been an issue that ever came up. I would have told her if she had asked, but…" Maya trailed off, staring at a piece of gum stuck to the step in front of her. Lucas' eyes were trained on her downcast ones by now and his jaw was slack.

"What happened?" The blonde looked up at her tall friend and a small smile appeared on her face as she met his eyes.

"Relax, Ranger Rick, she's not going to ignore you for the next year, that's me. See, I give people the silent treatment all the time and Riley was always trying to be just like me, but she's not very good at it." Her smile widened as she saw him loosen up.

"Back when it was just me, Riley and Farkle, we didn't have nearly as many problems as we do now, but the Farks made some graph that showed that on average the three of us combined found some issue to deal with about every week. Riley's still the little problem solver she's always been, so whenever a problem came up, she'd drop everything, any grudges, any anger, everything. It was the longest week of my life, but eventually an issue came up with my mom and she was there for me. I don't even remember what it was, like my mom couldn't walk me home from school or something, but Riley just totally forgot about me not telling her about my dad or forgave me or something and invited me over. And everything went back to normal." At the conclusion of her story, the blonde looked over at the boy beside her. He nodded silently. They both looked back out to the street and thought.

"Now that Zay and you are here to have your own little issues too, the time span of her silent treatment is probably down to like, two days now, if that makes you feel any better." He smiled and she saw a flash of green as he looked back at her.

"Thanks, Maya." She exhaled heavily and stood up, barely scuffing her combat boots on the rough cement. She slapped her hand on the back of his shoulder.

"Hey, no problem, Sundance." He grabbed her wrist and when she looked down at him he was staring at her with an imperceptible look on his face.

"What?" He bit his lip as he chose his words carefully.

"Do… do you want to know what I did? You never really acted like it affected you at all or anything so—"

"Of course I do," she interrupted, sitting back down next to him. "My goofy little Huckleberry friend finally did something interesting!" He laughed at her condescending, sarcastic tone and his eyes crinkled at he looked back up at her.

"But I don't want you to tell me until you're sure you want me to know. It's your life, I shouldn't be the one to decide what you share about it." She squeezed his shoulder in a more earnest way than her previous gesture had been before she stood up. As she started down the stairs, he called out to her.

"Let me walk you home, ma'am?" Maya smiled as he trotted down the steps after her.

"Yeah, why not." He held out his arm for her to loop hers through and she snickered at him as she took it. They walked down the sidewalk together with a spring in their step as they both took their little game a little too far.

And deep down they knew there was something between them that they were keeping from Riley and from themselves, but right now they told themselves that they had nothing to hide.


	2. Chapter 2

Ahhhh so this has even less editing and proofreading than my other stories so I'm sorry if this is really senseless. Like, literally, I just typed it out and uploaded it without _really_ even going back through and reading it. Oh well...

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Lucas sat out on the front steps of the school, waiting for Zay to get out of the locker room after they had finished football practice. It was the first week of Freshman year and it was certainly strange to not have all of his friends in all of his classes. Riley was surprisingly in an actual relationship with Charlie, much to Farkle's dismay. And Lucas, if he thought about it, he wasn't really upset or surprised when Riley broke off whatever "thing" they had. It almost made him feel guilty, maybe for the fact that he always knew that there was something not quite right with his "relationship" with the brunette even if she herself hadn't believed anything to be amiss. It felt like a secret he was keeping from her and that was concerning. It was eighth grade when Riley had last gotten mad at him for keeping something from her and the two days she ignored and avoided him had been the longest of his life. Not to mention that not only Riley was ignoring him, but Maya had to as well because her best friend expected that she was just as outraged that he hadn't shared his secret.

Come to think of it, it was really the lack of nicknames and "ha-hurr"ing during those two days that had really gotten to him. Funny how that worked.

When Zay had some small "about to fail an algebra test" crisis the Thursday after the secret of life incident that brought Riley back to him, it gave Maya the cue to begin speaking to him again. He could have kissed her when her first sentence to him was, "So Huckleberry, you wanna teach Cowboy Zay the best way to count himself some cattle?" Frankly, he _could_ have kissed her. Funny how that worked.

And sitting on those cement stairs filled with countless chips from careless skateboarders and gum spots from careless spitters, Lucas came to a conclusion that just about knocked him off his feet. Luckily, he had been sitting down, but the revelation had still had an affect on him. He had a crush on Maya Hart. And worse, he owed Zay ten bucks for his sudden realization.

Lucas' eyes were wide as he stared across the street and wondered when the heck that had happened and he jumped at the sound of a loud familiar voice from behind him.

"I'm sorry, _what?_ " Lucas froze in his spot, hoping she wouldn't see him if he sat perfectly still. Had he been speaking aloud rather than thinking? Had she heard him? Was she going to kill him now?

"Riley, you're being unreasonable, you told me to tell you honestly what I thought!" He blinked a few times before letting out a breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding. She was on the phone with Riley. And while it wasn't a good thing that the two were arguing over the phone, it felt much better than Maya being mad at him for his feelings at the moment. So he merely sat and listened, hoping she could see him so she wouldn't think he was eavesdropping.

"What do you mean I— Well… if thats what you think then I guess you're right. Goodbye, Riley." He heard the telltale beep of an ended call followed by a loud sigh. The clip clop of heeled steps got louder as they came towards him and soon there was a short blonde girl sitting in his periphery. He looked over to her, but she kept her eyes plastered on some indiscernible point straight out in front of them. So he turned his gaze back to the road and he chewed the inside of his cheek. He had no idea what to say now. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted to or should know about the argument between the two best friends and his crush discovery had thrown him for a loop. Lucas wasn't one for speechlessness, but in this moment, he wasn't sure that English was his native language.

"So… I guess you heard some of that?" His head snapped to attention when she suddenly broke the silence. She still wasn't looking at him, not really. Her icy blue eyes were still trained on the street below them, but she kept glancing in his direction.

"Uh, yeah. I guess I did." He winced at how awkward and foreign the words sounded in his mouth. It made it sound like he was talking to someone he barely knew rather than to one of his best friends. She grunted in acknowledgment and the silence dragged on and on.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He grimaced as soon as the words clawed their way out of his throat and he just wished he could call them back. It was Maya, he knew her, she would just get mad and push him away for saying something as stupid at that. Stupid, stupid Lucas. Boy, he sure didn't know what he should say, but he seemed to have a load of things he shouldn't say on speed dial. But then she did the unexpected.

"Well, Charlie was telling me something about what she and Charlie did…" Lucas' eyes widened and he was aware that his shock was making him miss some of what Maya was saying. But he just couldn't get over the fact that she was actually talking about her problems to someone. It was so unlike her.

"…and Riley just flat out asked me how I felt about him… and well… I don't know how I feel about him." She looked at Lucas expectantly and he nodded slowly even if he wasn't quite comprehending what she expected. But she took the gesture in stride and continued.

"I mean, he seems really cool, but… I don't even know." He blinked rapidly. This wasn't about him. He was pretty sure. I mean, she was talking _to_ him, so she couldn't be talking about him. Right? But he really didn't know anything anymore, did he?

"I don't know, what do you think of Charlie? I just… the fact he kept going after Riley even when it was clear she didn't feel that way about him just kind of concerns me. I mean I know they're dating _now_ but I still don't think I know him that well to judge his character." He relaxed when she said the other boy's name. This wasn't about him, great. This was about Maya and Riley having a problem and she was coming to him for help. Okay. He could deal with this now.

"I don't really know him that well either, but I like him. He's a nice guy." He replied, speaking slowly. Maya sighed deeply and looked down at her hands in her lap.

"I guess you're right. But I told Riley that I didn't know how I felt about him. And, as I guess you heard, she flipped. She knows I have to be honest with her, she knows that. She _knows_ that I don't like keeping secrets and she still pushed me. So… I guess we're on break from being friends or something?" She let out a harsh laugh that sounded painful to him. The Texan could see that his friend was hurting and he loosely draped an arm over her shoulder, loose enough that if she wanted, she could shrug him off easily. But she didn't. Rather took his large hand in both of her small ones and pulled his arm tighter around her, scooting closer so that she was pressed into his side. He inhaled sharply and he felt his face heating up, but she wasn't looking at him so he felt a little better about that.

"Why do things like this happen? Why to people like Riley make big things out of nothings so that people like me walk into traps and get hurt?" He didn't respond to that, feeling that it was a rhetorical question, but mindlessly stroked her shoulder before deciding to respond in his own way.

"I think I want to tell you what happened in Texas. The… the thing that made me come here." He felt her stiffen under his arm, but he continued on.

"I wasn't really the best kid back then… I've always had these anger issues you know—"

"Lucas, don't tell me if you don't want to. I don't want to know if you don't want to tell me." He could hear the plea in her voice but he shook his head.

"No, I want to tell you. I've thought about it a lot and I think its time someone knew." He waited for her to respond and when she finally did, it was a small nod that he felt against his shoulder. And with a deep sigh, he continued.

"Well, I guess I was a bad boy or something, but the school was afraid of me. Kids didn't mess with me, teachers tended to turn a blind eye to whatever I did because they were afraid I'd…" He coughed. "…come after them, or something, I don't know." He shook his head and continued.

"So even though they didn't mess with me, well, my friends were kind of _the_ kids to pick on. I mean, you've met Zay. He has absolutely no filter. And those guys you and Riley got a hold of in Texas? Honestly they were kind of like Farkle and Riley. A nerd and a klutz. But they were great, like you guys. It's really too bad not everyone saw them like that. Anyway, most people were smart enough to avoid messing with them because they knew I'd be there to back them up." He paused when she let out a mirthless laugh.

"I'm sorry, its just… well you were like the me of Texas weren't you? I mean, no one bugs Riley or the Farks 'cause I kill everything before it can get to them. Sounds like you were the same." He blinked at the comparison and it made sense. It was a nice feeling when your crush has something in common with you. And that's where the thought stopped because he really shouldn't just start thinking about Maya as just his crush because that seemed too frivolous for whatever it was they had. Or maybe it was because they would never even be that much. He wasn't sure. That seemed to be a pattern whenever he was thinking of Maya. Funny how that works.

"Well, I don't think you're not nearly as bad as how I was back then. My idea of stopping things before they got to my friends was giving out black eyes like candy." He snorted in exasperation.

"It was pretty bad. But that wasn't even close to what I did one day… Do… do you ever get the feeling like something is building up, just beneath your skin and it's just itching for release?" She nodded slightly into his shoulder.

"Well, I just kind of… snapped. Some kid said something stupid to Zay and I just… the kid ended up in the hospital, I gave him a bloody nose, he couldn't see out of his left eye and he had a few broken ribs. I got scared. I never really knew the extent to my power, but that? That was not what I was expecting at all. So my dad sent me and my mom here to get a fresh start. I've been working on it, I mean, it really shook me up that I could have that much impact on someone's life. I don't want to be that person. You can still tell that I'm not completely over it if you know me, I still get some little outbursts and I don't think you guys notice but every time someone looks at any of you wrong I _might_ just shoot them some daggers. But I can't get that feeling out of my head, I feel like one day it'll just all come back and I'll be that person again. Like theres a monster inside me that's just trying to… I don't know, consume me? And it's just so, so scary that I might snap again and when I come to, I'll have blood on my hands and there'll be a kid on the ground…" He didn't realize he'd been shaking until she put a hand on his face. His pupils dilated as he focused on her face, which was now upturned to his with a concerned look furrowing her brows. He felt a blush rising up his neck and he quickly turned his face away from her scrutiny.

"I—I'm sorry. I just…"

"Don't you dare apologize. Don't you dare apologize for being afraid of something like that. It's nothing to be ashamed of." He didn't turn, but gave her a weak smile.

"Thanks, Maya."

Her eyes were shining and he realized she was close to tears. He hadn't wanted to burden her with his issues while she had her own and he cursed mentally at his error. Stupid, stupid Lucas. No wonder he was doomed to slip up on his calm facade, he messed up all the time. Stupid, stupid Lucas.

"I didn't mean to burden you with this, Maya, you have you're own stuff to deal with and I had no place to—"

"Stop that, stop apologizing! Its just, I never really looked at you from a perspective like that and I get it. I get it, you hold back the floodgates so you don't drown your friends in it, right?" He nodded slowly and she mimicked him.

"I understand completely. Its why I'm always 'okay'. Because if I'm anything else, Riley's going to make it her life goal to fix my problems and I can't let her do that. She needs to live her life happy. That's why I draw, I have to just get it out sometimes. Its just… I know how much I really care even if I don't act like it. If you're the same, you must care just as much as I do. Its really comforting knowing someone else cares about us as I do, you know?" He nodded and she snuggled into him. He realized that they were snuggling on the cement school steps and that anyone looking could see them clearly. And the blush crept back up his neck and bloomed on his cheeks despite his attempts to fight it back. He tried to speak, but he found that his words wavered, much to his disgust.

"Y-you can tell Riley all this if you want. I know you don't like to keep things from her." But Maya looked up at him with a determination in her eyes and he could see that the pink had invaded her cheeks as well.

"No, I'm not going to tell her until you're ready to tell it to her face." He furrowed his brow.

"But thats like kicking a puppy…"

"So you want _me_ to kick a puppy for you?"

"No, no! I just… I'm not sure I'll ever tell her. I really just want her to leave the subject alone to be honest… but I couldn't ask you to not tell her, I don't want to be the reason for you keeping secrets from her." A slight smile appeared on her face and she released his arm and made to stand up.

"Look, Lucas, this is bigger than 'I don't really know how I feel about your boyfriend'. This is _your_ secret that you chose to confide in me and it doesn't sound like you want to share it with anyone else. So I'll keep it. Because even if it means not telling Riley, it would be keeping something safe for you, and you're my friend too even if I don't act like it a lot." She held out a hand to give him leverage and grinned.

"Walk me home?" Lucas returned the smile, taking her arm and pulling himself up.

"Of course, ma'am." And he held out his arm for her to take and they walked towards Maya's apartment like they had last time they sat on those steps. Except this time there was a hint of pink on both of their cheeks and the forgotten Zay watched them as he walked out of the school. He stood on the steps, grinning ear to ear. Lucas was supposed to be waiting for him to get out of the locker room so they could walk home together, but at this point, Zay was okay with it.

Because Zay knew when some secrets were absolutely secret things even though most of the time he was happy to spill whatever he knew. He had Lucas' back when Maya had first asked him what had happened back in Texas and he had his and Maya's backs now. He had a secret to keep, and he was both excited and afraid for when this one would come to light.

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Poor Zay has to walk home alone now.

Hope you enjoyed it!


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